The Ferry Between Hong Kong & Macau

My morning ferry ride to Macau was through placid waters and was thoroughly uneventful, passing by countless cargo freighters in the South China Sea (note the foreshadowing).  There are ferries departing Kowloon every 30 minutes during the day and it's all a rather simple process.  You show up at the ticket counter and they put you on the next available boat, which in my experience (in both directions) entailed getting out on the 2nd boat after my arrival at the ferry terminal.  You do go through customs, but to my great disappointment, they stopped stamping passports earlier this year.

The boat itself accommodates at least 300 passengers.  You're assigned a seat in a row, 11 seats across (with about 4 or 5 aisles running up and down the boat).  The seats themselves are quite nice and are as comfortable as business class airline seats.

On the ride home, night had fallen and I was sitting in the middle of the boat, so I took out a magazine and started reading.  The waters were a little choppier than in the morning, but nothing worse than light turbulence in an airplane.  About 30 minutes into the ride, we hit a decent sized wave and everyone looked around at each other, but things rapidly calmed down.  The 70-year old lady next to me (who spoke no English) and I exchanged glances and she muttered to herself (well, maybe she was muttering to me, but I couldn't tell).

Then came an announcement that "due to weather conditions," we would be a little late arriving in Kowloon and to stay seated.  I doubted there was anything wrong with the weather (it didn't seem windy when we left Macau) and assumed we had just passed through the wake of a freighter.  About 10 minutes later, we hit a series of waves, culminating in a big one.  As the series progressed, people started "ooh-ing" louder and louder -- it was a bit like a roller coaster.  Then when we hit the most pronounced of the waves, about 1/3 of the passengers let out a big "ooh."  I don't think anyone screamed, but everyone was talking and looking around nervously.  Then came the sound of one person vomiting ... and then another (though maybe it was the same person -- I wasn't looking).  The lady next to me looked at me and I took some exaggerated deep breaths as my only way of communicating with her.

The way I look at it, dozens of these ferries traverse this route every day, and I never felt nauseous, so I wasn't too worried.  What did give me some pause is that I assumed most of my fellow passengers took this route regularly, and they did seem a little concerned.  At the end of the day, though, no harm, no foul -- and I got a decent story.  As I departed the boat, I noticed two boxes each containing "1000 sickness bags" on the luggage rack -- so they're certainly prepared.